Ebell Reacts to Tax Bill Passage, ANWR Oil Production

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The Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Myron Ebell responded to the passage of the tax bill today, which contained a provision for oil and gas production in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

Ebell said:

“The decision by the Congress to open a small part of ANWR to oil and gas production is great news for America that has been thirty years in the making.

“Over that time, preservationist pressure groups have spent tens of millions of dollars to convince people that locking up our federal lands from natural resource production is good for the environment and has no economic costs. Congress has finally said ‘no’ to these false and misleading arguments.

“ANWR has over 19 million acres, including 8 million acres designated as Wilderness Areas. If U. S. Geological Survey estimates are correct, opening 2,000 acres to oil and gas exploration in the 1.5 million acre non-Wilderness coastal plain of ANWR could produce over ten billion barrels of oil. That much oil would create thousands of high-paying jobs and add hundreds of billions of dollars to the economy.

“Forty years of production at nearby Prudhoe Bay have proved that oil can be produced in the Arctic without degrading the environment.”